Tempting the taste buds - Indian and International cuisine for people who love food and cooking!!

June 20, 2008

Coconut rice

Nowadays I am trying out so much variety in rice itself, I am so happy I could find new favourites with almost every recipe variation of simple basmati rice. Being from Kerala, the land where coconut is added to anything and everything, I had to keep aloof from this tasty nut after coming to US. I had no means of grating or even breaking open the coconut, and ofcourse trips to the Indian store were almost unheard of (for us)! Blogging has brought me back to the wonderful Indian cuisine and is inspiring me to try almost everything that dont sound very complicated! These days trips to the Indian store is more frequent, but that too not at par with many others. Thankfully I had some frozen grated coconut that I got from the Indian store this week. Eventhough it wasnt nearly as tasty as fresh coconut, it did its purpose. We thoroughly enjoyed it. JM couldnt contain his hunger once he saw the rice, and lil LM wasnt far behind. I was surprised about the simplicity of the dish and if you have the cooked rice, its just a matter of minutes before you could enjoy a steaming bowl of coconut rice. Enjoy and have a great weekend!! BTW, this is my first time making or eating this! :-)

Saute for a minute or two until the cashewnuts and urad dal are light brown.

Toss in the shredded/grated coconut and fry for a minute more.

Mix in the cooked rice and stir until mixed well and heated through.

Adjust the seasoning by adding salt as needed.

Sprinkle the chopped cilantro and mix well.

Serve hot with Indian curries.

Source: India with passion by Manju Malhi.

Tips:

I used frozen grated coconut after thawing.

We had it with curd, pickle and pappads.

Once again its award-time. Rachel of Tangerine's kitchen passed me two beautiful awards - The Yummy Blog award and the Rocking Girl Blogger award. At this time, I am dedicating and awarding these two awards to all of you - especially my fellow rocking bloggers, my lovely readers, all my friends and family who are encouraging me everyday to keep up the blog! Love ya all!! Again, wishing you all a great weekend!!

45 comments:

I have never had coconut rice. I know i know bad mallu :-)It looks really good.ongrats with the awards.Here i buy fresh coconut and then freeze them as we don't have indian shops here so don't get frozen coconut.So it is the hard way for me, if i need the coconut

Hey forgot to tell u... I tried ur method for lemon rice... usually it comes out just ok.I used to add the lemon juice at the very end.. I tried ur method and it came out so good that not even one grain of rice was left

Hey JZ, thanks for posting this. I am a great fan of all Indian rice varieties, please try to post different types of Biriyanis also like Malabar Biriyani, fish Biriyani etc. I tried this today and it came out very well. Since it's not spicy my li'l ones enjoyed it too. Once again thanks.

Thanks Sherin, I think dessicated coconut should work fine, just dont fry it before the addition of rice, in case it becomes more dry! I am not sure though, just guessing..and thanks for getting back to me abt the lemon rice! Great that you could try it out!

Thanks Vandana, pearlsofeast and notyet100!

Thanks Trupti, but yo do know that I have a resident photographer, (my hus) dont u? :-)

Thank you so much Siri, Sukanya and Ranji! Ranji, thanks a lot for passing me the awards! Hugggs!!

hey JZ,Hearty congratulations for all the awards and this coconut rice is indeed a great south Indian way of having rice.I enjoyed reading it and am sure will do so in trying out and my family will feel same in eating it out

Thanks Srilekha, Skribles, EC and Trupti!

Thanks Vani, EC and Trupti

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha

Thanks Trupti and Sireesha!

Thanks Su and Ramya

Thanks Ramya

Thanks Ivy!

Humble beginnings!

I became a fan of cooking blogs when I came to the US because I suddenly found myself to be a home-maker with little knowledge of cooking and a lot of free time on my hands. After a couple of years and experimenting with a lot of food, I started thinking about my own blog!!! But doubting my writing skills, I have been pushing it back for some time. But with a bit of encouragement from one of my close friends and a boosting jolt from my husband, I decided not to wait any further. I hope that everybody will enjoy going through and trying out the recipes.

When I first started depending on the Internet for my cooking, I came across many wonderful recipe sites and cooking blogs!! One thing I realised is that since we are being offered a lot of different versions of a single recipe on the net, we will be more inclined to try out the recipes if we know that the recipe has passed somebody else's cooking test ! A picture of the dish will definitely go a long way to aid our decision. My objective with the blog is to post some of my original recipes along with the recipes from the net that I have chosen after trying out a few of the choices available. In the case of recipes taken from the other sites or books, the actual source will be posted along with the recipe, with the tips that I found to be useful. I sincerely hope that my blog will be a further incentive for everybody to experiment with the already popular dishes ! Please post your comments so that I can improve and evolve the blog into something which will help others who need a bit of inspiration for their cooking.